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A Distinct Grace:
Before, During and After Breast Cancer |
Angel Suarez-Rosado
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This desperation is so attached to me, as my own nerves and arteries. During 1985, my dear Aunt Now was secluded one more time to the hospital. The morphine and pills could not cut down her pain and suffering. The miles, the distance, the phone calls expressed the fatalness; the disease was taking Now away. Another call was from my father telling me, "There is nothing I can do, we all are in tears. Please do not come to the island. All of the women do not need to see us cry." He was crying on the telephone. I never heard him so desperate and concerned over what was to come. My own battle started then. I did not cry. It was a kind of anger from my insides, so I rebelled against everything; I was mad at Breast Cancer, I was mad at God.
At exactly the same time, the electricity did not work in my apartment in Brooklyn, New York. When I was around, light bulbs, light projectors, elevators, in the subway, in the streets, in the coffee shop ceased to work. In the studio, as soon as I touched the light switch, electricity would surround my body; it was like my own aura filled with anger, with a discharge of all electrical forms. One single thought was in my mind; Breast Cancer- Now- Electricity! I didn't understand it all. My roommate suggested a healing bath with aromatic plants and suffer with tears, my pain. So he prepared the healing bath and held me. The next morning the strange contact with electricity and anger disappeared but the images of Now's departure emerged in my artwork. In another call from Puerto Rico, after the burial of Now, my grandmother remembered that the dress in which Now was buried had mother-of-pearl buttons. She recalled an old tradition that mother-of-pearl buttons cannot accompany the deceased, as they will be confused later on with the bones. Now's grave had to be opened and the buttons removed. How painful for my whole family, mostly women, to confront death again. Regarding Macy's Towel, which appears in this exhibition, the prescription bottles have been collected by me from friends and neighbors. They are different medicines from different people- some of whom I did not know. Both the names of the person and the medicine have been blocked out on the bottles. The marking becomes an almost angry action. Many people around me collect and offer me materials for my installations. I feel as though the community is participating in the process. I have left the names of the pharmacies to establish a geographical reference. The people in the photograph are my mother, my Aunt Now, on the far right and my two older sisters between them. This is a fragmented history. I selected this picture as an exploration of my own history. It has emerged through conversations with my mother who believes that breast cancer is related to the severe poverty and bad nutrition they suffered as children. Also, the frame I have selected, a circular one, in related to the earth and its circular motion. |
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